Mike Monroe: Even at 34-6, Spurs fly under radar

After the Summer of LeBron, the top storyline of the 2010-11 season has been Turning Up the Heat.

Admit it: You were thrilled when the Heat got off to such a rocky start that a players-only meeting was called after less than a month to air grievances, and head coach Erik Spoelstra was thought to be another loss or two from the unemployment line.

You probably tuned in to watch the most over-hyped blowout in league history when LeBron James returned to Cleveland to face the Cavaliers. The thousands of aggrieved Cavaliers fans who believed they could make him regret “The Decision” by fashioning mean messages on signboards were cheated of retribution when James toyed with the shell of the team he left behind.

And you likely watched in moderate amazement as the Heat suddenly figured out how to optimize their three All-Stars to run off 21 wins in 22 games, coming within one road victory of matching the longest road win streak in league history.

Miami has gone from 9-8 on Nov. 27 to 30-11 entering Saturday’s game in Chicago. The team creates such a stir wherever it goes that James dubbed it “The “Heatles.”

Of course, King James forgot that John Lennon warned the world “instant karma’s gonna get you.”

James isn’t the first athlete to discover that what seems hilarious when you hit the Tweet button can turn very un-funny when it creates a negative stir.

At least the buzz about the Heat — their failures, successes and excesses — has been focused primarily on what the team’s three superstar players have done on the court.

Not so for the other story that has dominated NBA news through the first half of the season.

It’s hard to recall another season when daily speculation about a trade shared the top of the news cycle quite like the never-ending saga of the Carmelo Anthony deal that remains undone.

Meanwhile, Spurs fans wonder why their heroes have the best record in the league, yet fly under the radar of a national media obsessed with a Heat team fans outside South Florida love to hate and a blockbuster trade still waiting to happen.

Gregg Popovich knows the truth, and he couldn’t care less about any perceived lack of respect.

“We’ve never been the storyline, even when we’ve won championships,” the Spurs coach said Wednesday night in Milwaukee. “We’re pretty used to that. It’s just the lay of the land and the nature of the beast.

“I don’t think people talked a lot about Utah when Karl (Malone) and John (Stockton) were there. It’s just the way it is, and we don’t really care. It doesn’t mean very much. Never has. Never will.”

What means most to Popovich is the daily grind, the Spurs culture he calls “pounding the rock.” It is why the Spurs typically are better in the second half of the season. Only twice in the eight seasons since the move into the AT&T Center (formerly SBC Center) necessitated the Spurs’ annual rodeo road trip have they lost more games in the second 41 than in the first half of the season.

And if this season’s second half matches the first?

Then the Spurs will be the Story of the Season, no matter what the Heatles do.